Sun 22 May 2016
A Book! Movie!! Review by Dan Stumpf: LUKE SHORT – Station West.
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western Fiction , Western movies[16] Comments
LUKE SHORT – Station West. Houghton Mifflin, hardcover, 1946. Bantam #139, paperback, 1948. Serialized in The Saturday Evening Post from 19 Oct to 30 Nov 1946. Reprinted many times.
STATION WEST. RKO, 1948. Dick Powell, Jane Greer, Agnes Moorehead, Burl Ives, Guinn “Big Boy’ Williams, Steve Brodie, Raymond Burr and the ever-popular Regis Toomey. Screenplay by Frank Fenton and Winston Miller. Directed by Sidney Lanfield.
Luke Short always had a way with gritty characters and down-and-dirty stories, and here’s one of his best. John Haven, a cavalry officer working undercover, gets dispatched to investigate the theft of Army Uniforms at the fort near the mining/logging town of South Pass Wyoming and quickly discovers that the quirky crime is merely a prelude to something much more grandiose and sinister.
From this fairly conventional start, Short builds an atmosphere of pervasive evil and compulsive treachery, painting South Pass as a snowbound Western Gomorrah: a town run by corrupt bosses, rife with casual killings, where larceny is a way of life and life is nasty brutish and short, to coin a phrase.
To be sure, there are some good folks here: the upright Cavalry Captain and his beautiful daughter; the hard-working widder woman working as Haven’s liaison; a few miners and freighters and cooks… but the impressive thing about Station West is how the author pushes his protagonist through a plot filled with a near-constant sense of danger and double-cross. Short keeps us guessing about the moves and counter-moves in a story that bucks and jumps like a toboggan on a bumpy slope — an apt comparison since he also evokes the chill of a Wyoming winter in a way that kept me shivering.
As I watched the film made from this, it suddenly occurred to me that the TV character Peter Gunn must have been based on Dick Powell’s tough-guy persona; they show the same wry cynicism, share the lop-sided grin, are quick with a quip or a punch, and handy with the ladies as the plot requires. That has nothing o do with this review — just thought I’d throw it in here and look at the ripples.
Anyway, the movie Station West works a few changes on the book. For one thing it swaps the frigid Wyoming locale for sunny, picturesque (and familiar) Red Rock area around Sedona Arizona. And they write in another character: where the criminal gang in the book is run by a couple of nasty tough guys, the outfit in the movie is headed by Jane Greer, who runs her unlawful enterprise with an iron fist, much as Barbara Stanwyck would do (more convincingly) a bit later.
The Greer character lends a neat noirish tone to a film that carries it nicely; there’s enough night in this movie to put a Yukon winter to shame. We also get Raymond Burr as a crooked lawyer, Agnes Moorehead, and Guinn “Big Boy†Williams as a sadistic strong-arm reminiscent of his turn in The Glass Key (1935).
The film carries over the fights, shootings and double-crosses from the book and carries them well, and it even makes room for a few brief and quirky turns by some good character actors, but one of these puzzles me:
Burl Ives sings the song under the title credits and has a showy bit as a philosophical hotel clerk (you know the type) but he gets NO BILLING! His name never appears on the cast list or even in the musical credits. I did some research on this and found that Ives was blacklisted by the HUAC in 1950, which led to a rather controversial phase in his life and career, and I wondered if this might have something to do with it, which led to some deeper thought about the nature of hypocrisy and how one can deny the obvious simply by keeping a straight face…..
But all that is mere idle speculation. And these thoughts passed like breeze, which man respecteth not. Station West is a fine book and a fun noir Western, and you should enjoy them both.
May 22nd, 2016 at 11:37 am
I first read STATION WEST as a serial in the 1946 back issues of THE SATURDAY EVENING POST. Short had about a dozen serials in the pulps such as ADVENTURE, WESTERN STORY, ARGOSY, and SHORT STORIES before he hit the big time with the slicks.
If I had to pick one author in the western pulps as my favorite, it would be Luke Short. Max Brand, Ernest Haycox, Walt Coburn, Merle Constiner, all did excellent work of course but Luke Short was really special.
As I type this I’m looking at a big poster advertising the Bantam paperback. I got it at an old Pulpcon from dealer Ray Walsh for $125.
By the way, Brian Garfield says this is Dick Powell’s only starring western. I didn’t realize it but he’s good in it.
May 22nd, 2016 at 12:03 pm
Speaking non-seriously, I suppose COWBOY FROM BROOKLYN doesn’t count.
May 22nd, 2016 at 12:24 pm
No Steve, it doesn’t; and neither does RIDING HIGH.
May 22nd, 2016 at 3:02 pm
The Wikipedia article on “Peter Gunn” states:
“Edwards developed Peter Gunn from an earlier fictional detective that he had created. Richard Diamond, Private Detective starred Dick Powell, and aired as a radio series from 1949 to 1953. David Janssen later starred in the television adaptation from 1957 to 1960. It was this character’s success which prompted his creator to revisit the concept as Peter Gunn.”
So there’s your Dick Powell-Peter Gunn connection made quite definite.
May 22nd, 2016 at 4:34 pm
According to Leonard Maltin’s review, STATION WEST was originally released at 92 minutes, while the current version is 80 minutes. Maybe that excised footage included more of Burl Ives’ role.
The movie may be Dick Powell’s only starring Western, but he returned to the genre as host of TV’s “Zane Grey Theater” (1956-61), where he also acted in a number of episodes. Some episodes of the show served as pilots for well-known Western series, such as “The Rifleman” and “Wanted Dead or Alive.”
I think STATION WEST is director Sidney Lanfield’s sole Western movie, though he later directed episodes of various TV Westerns.
May 22nd, 2016 at 4:35 pm
Station West was initially released with a running time of 91 minutes. For reasons unknown to me, not only was that running time reduced to 80 minutes for it television release, but it remains unrestored for the Warner Archive currently available.
May 22nd, 2016 at 4:48 pm
Just to note Powell was also the original Amos Burke of BURKE’S LAW an influence on Aaron Spelling as well as Edwards.
Anyone who recalls Edwards speech when he won the special Oscar should recall him thanking Dick Powell.
I remember the first time I saw this not only how well it translated the Short book to the screen, but how well it fit in with the hardboiled noirish work Powell was doing in the era. This and BLOOD ON THE MOON (also Short) are among the best of the Western noirs and I think it is no accident they are based on Short books,
Short’s lean tough prose always marked his Westerns as something different. I recall one about political corruption in a Western city that was as tough as anything you would expect from Hammett, and reminded me of Ross Thomas, all in the usual fifty to sixty thousand word (max) format Short novels usually fell in.
Like Walker I agree Short was my favorite of the Western pulp writers. I don’t think I was ever disappointed or bored with a Short novel or that he ever just took the easy out of just another Western, and unlike a lot of writers neither he nor his books changed much when he moved to the slicks, and what changes their were improvements.
He’s one pulp Western writer whose work would have been equally at home in BLACK MASK or DIME DETECTIVE stylistically.
May 22nd, 2016 at 5:56 pm
David, I agree. Robert Wise’s BLOOD ON THE MOON is a terrific noir Western.
May 22nd, 2016 at 6:57 pm
Edwards wrote a dozen episodes of Four Star Playhouse and Powell was one of the four stars. There, Dick was also the first to play the role of Dante in “Dante’s Inferno” before the series with Howard Duff. Four star, of course, produced both TV shows: Richard Diamond and Burke’s Law.
May 25th, 2016 at 6:55 am
Not only was Burl Ives blacklisted, he later gave many names before the committee, which led to a long estrangement from Pete Seeger, who had been a mentor of his in the radio. Many in the folk song milieu never forgave his ratting out friends (like Kazan had done) which may well have accounted for his work in Station West being soft pedaled and uncredited. Eventually his career recovered, but only after he went to Broadway in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, which he later filmed.
May 25th, 2016 at 7:04 am
Doubt the film was cut because of Burl Ives. The cutting of this and many other movies was more likely done for TV sale,a common practice by companies like RKO, who often reduced many films to running times under 90 minutes .
May 25th, 2016 at 9:55 am
Howard’s view is mine. Very unlikely the cutting had anything to do with Ives, and to justify that point, have a look at Smoky (1946) which remains fully intact.
May 25th, 2016 at 8:55 pm
My understanding is that the shortened version of STATION WEST was for the film’s theatrical re-release in 1957.
May 25th, 2016 at 10:54 pm
I’ve mostly been blogmaster in absentia this week, I’m sorry to say, but I’ve been following all of the discussions off and on without providing much input myself.
Burl Ives is clearly included in the IMDb cast credits, and I have a feeling that in 1948 there was no reason to exclude him from the onscreen cast. If he had not been listed, IMDb has its faults, but surely someone would have left a comment or said something.
In 1958, on the other hand, it may have been that he was controversial enough that they did delete his name for the re-released version. They also cut the running time down, for whatever reason, but not his role. They left him in, but deleted his name.
If this is what happened, it sure doesn’t make sense now, but it’s my theory, and I’m stuck with it. Until you convince me otherwise.
May 26th, 2016 at 3:14 am
I’m convinced alien time-travelers did it.
July 20th, 2016 at 10:29 pm
It’s interesting that Burl Ives’ name and image are prominent on the original poster art/dvd cover. So I guess his name was probably in the original credits too.